Content

In 1886 Segantini, born in what at the time was Austrian South Tyrol, arrived in Savognin in Grisons after a miserable youth spent in Milan. Here, and later in Engadin, he draws on a unique, meticiulous observation of nature to create visions of the Alps marked by their crystalline luminosity. The topical theme of La vanità, one of his rare wholly symbolic compositions, already stands at the threshold between the decadence of the Fin de siècle and the life-affirming “Jugendstil”.